


See You at Your Funeral

by alouette_des_champs



Series: Gritty She-boot [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drugs, Established Relationship, F/F, Families of Choice, Female Friendship, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jealousy, Spongebob Voice: The Gang's All Here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23145274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alouette_des_champs/pseuds/alouette_des_champs
Summary: Former foster kids and current broke bitches Catra and Adora try to piece the remnants of their wrecked relationship back together with misguided attempts at help from everyone around them.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Series: Gritty She-boot [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683196
Comments: 18
Kudos: 117
Collections: Gays in Etheria





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's me, ya girl, coming to you from COVID-19 quarantine. Now that I have nothing to do and nowhere to go, my desire to write a gritty reboot of simply everything in existence is the only thing keeping me conscious.
> 
> **Consequently, there's a heavy IPV trigger warning on this one.**
> 
>   
> Title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIgu46uI9XU  
> Also, extremely this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZFyqzTCt-I

Adora’s screaming internal clock dragged her into consciousness way before she would have preferred. She had never been the kind of person who was able to sleep in; she had never been _allowed_ to be that kind of person. 

It took a moment for her brain to catch up. She could tell before she even properly opened her eyes that she wasn’t in her own bed. The faint smell of cigarettes and gas station incense meant that she was in Catra’s apartment, which meant that she and Catra were back together. They were so on-again, off-again that it was hard to keep track sometimes.

Catra was still asleep like she usually was before noon, curled into a ball under the blankets with only the top of her head visible. Adora slipped out of bed, pulled on the first two items of clothing she picked up from the floor, and tiptoed to the bathroom. Luckily, the cluttered little apartment was quiet; Catra’s nightmare of a roommate wasn’t up yet. She brushed her teeth with the toothbrush that she’d told her friends she definitely didn’t keep here and put on the deodorant that _no,_ she definitely had not bought for this sole purpose. She did not meet her own eyes in the mirror while she fixed her ponytail.

She and Catra had met in the trenches of the foster care system, each bouncing around senselessly from placement to placement. They had lived in a group home together for a couple of years when they had been very young; they had formed the type of fatally enmeshed closeness that two people can only form in a very dark place. It was a small city; they had inevitably crossed paths again once they had grown up, running around on the streets up to no good. It was somehow simultaneously the best and the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

Adora tiptoed back to the bedroom and closed the door quietly. A hint of a mischievous smile touched her face before she sprung into action and took a running leap onto the bed, bouncing the sleeping woman awake violently.

“Good morning!” she sing-songed. Catra groaned in protest, desperately trying to pull the blankets back over her head, but Adora yanked them away. Realizing that she was fighting a losing battle, Catra let go of the blankets and instead grabbed her around the waist, flipping Adora onto her back. They wrestled around for a minute like kids, laughing. Finally, Catra pinned her down with her knees and began to tickle her ribs ruthlessly.

“Stop!” Adora cackled, kicking her legs in a weak attempt at escape.

“Bold of you to jump me in my own bed while I’m sleeping then beg me for mercy.”

She could already tell that things were going to be different this time around. She could tell just by the look on the other woman’s face, her freckled nose screwed up in a fake-mean grimace while she tickled her. There had been a lot of nasty words thrown back and forth between them in the past, face-slapping, hair-pulling, pushing, shoving, ugly fights. Adora knew that if she tried hard enough, checked all the right boxes, toed the right lines, she would be able to make this work. She would be able to outrun every flaw and circumstance that had ruined things for them in the past. She _had_ to. 

Gradually, the vicious tickling slowed to a stop. Catra ran her fingers up over the bumps of her ribcage, cupping her breast gently, circling her nipple with her thumb. “You’re lucky you’re so cute. Otherwise I’d have to murder you for waking me up this fucking early.”

Adora felt her cheeks go hot. “Wow. That _is_ lucky.”

With a chuckle, she leaned down to kiss her, deep and slow. She made a soft, contented noise, arching up into the kiss and wrapping her arms around her neck. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. All the laughter had, apparently, come at the price of waking up Scorpia, the world’s most invasive roommate.

“Hey, Catra?” she called through the door. “I’m getting started on breakfast and we’re out of eggs. Mind if I borrow your car to go to the store?”

“I don’t care!” she yelled back, rolling her eyes.

“Thanks!”

The mood was officially ruined. Adora made a face. “Why do you still live with her?”

“Rent’s a bitch, Adora,” Catra replied, clambering out of bed and rifling through her drawers for something presentable to wear. “Move in with me and I’ll kick her out.”

“You know I can’t.” Not only had she signed the lease with Bow and Glimmer, she had pinkie-promised the two of them that she wouldn’t move back in with Catra until she they had worked things out once and for all.

“Then don’t bitch about who I live with.”

“Can you please just look for a roommate who isn’t trying to, like, be your wife?” She began to pick through the clothes on the floor to find the ones that were hers, or at least the ones that looked like they would fit her the best.

“You’re pretty hot when you’re jealous.”

“I’m serious!” Adora threw a balled-up sock at her, which she dodged effortlessly, smirking.

“Maybe lend me one of your fucking trust fund friends. Speaking of crazy bitches trying to be somebody’s wife.” It was true that both of her best friends came from money. At first, she’d felt a little like their project, like they were slumming it with her for a laugh, but they weren’t that kind of people. She never could have afforded her third of the rent for the apartment they lived in, but Glimmer’s mom covered it. That _really_ made her feel worthless. She had made being low maintenance a point of pride for most of her life, and now she was taking so many handouts…it was a blow to her self-esteem, what little she had. 

“Glimmer does _not_ want to be my wife. She’s my best friend. I know that concept is foreign to you.” As soon as it left her mouth, she knew that she’d said the wrong thing. Catra’s narrow shoulders immediately tensed into a hard line.

“Whatever,” she muttered.

“Hey,” Adora said softly, reaching for her wrist. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

Catra jerked her arm out of reach. “You didn’t. I’ll text you.”

She stood there like an idiot trying to think of something to say, but after a moment, she just nodded and picked up her bag. Scorpia was still searching the apartment for the car keys. Adora power-walked past her to the foyer, slipped her shoes on, and was out the door before the other woman could make even one single thinly-veiled remark about what a slut she was. “Bye Scorpia!”

She had chained her bike to a sign outside; it was a miracle nobody had taken a pair of bolt-cutters to the lock and stolen it during the night. She tied her shoes, slung her duffel bag across her chest, and headed straight for the gym. It was located in a shitty strip mall next to a Chinese restaurant about a mile away. It was the only one in a fifty mile radius that she could afford. Fitness had always been important to her not because it made her feel good or because it was fun, but because it gave her clear-cut goals to push toward. Everything else in life was messy; it was hard to tell if you were doing the right thing or going in the right direction. With exercise, someone could tell you the right things to do, and if you did them, you would improve. There were rules. Adora liked rules.

The place was usually pretty empty; there were a couple of machines and free weights clustered in the corner, a few worn old treadmills looking listlessly out of the window. Its biggest draw was a regulation-size boxing ring and a couple of worn-out punching bags. That was where she met up with her trainer.

Hope was six-foot-something of muscle and no-nonsense attitude. She was the gym’s one and only boxing instructor, and she had taken an interest in Adora. She was used to people ‘taking an interest in her,’ or rather, latching onto the opportunity to do a low-effort good deed for a cute, sad orphan. In this case, it meant that Hope had offered to give her lessons for free as long as she paid the base fee for the gym membership. Even though it got on her nerves how willingly and openly people seemed to pity her, she had taken her up on the offer. It was unwise to turn down anything free.

Mostly, Hope supervised and yelled out combos while Adora hit the bag. Her guidance was always calm, self-assured, and neutral, which was appreciated. At least she wasn’t patronizing about it. It reminded her of her high school JROTC days. She had been so regimented and uptight when she had graduated that the chaos of the real world had bowled her over immediately, but it was comforting to return to the sense that everything was taken care of for a while, the safety of following orders without thinking.

“You’re angry,” Hope remarked, nudging one of Adora’s feet back into the correct position with her own shoe.

“Aren’t I supposed to be angry?” she shot back between jabs.

“You’re not supposed to be anything. I was just making an observation.” She lapsed into silence for a moment while Adora punched her way through the pattern a couple more times. “Do you want to talk?”

She let her arms drop to her sides, shaking sweaty wisps of hair out of her face. “No thanks.” She was broke. She felt like she was deep, deep in debt even though everyone kept telling her she didn’t owe them anything. She was walking a tightrope in a stiff wind. Talking wasn’t gong to solve anything. 

“Alright. Let’s take five.” 

Adora sat down on a small wooden bench in the corner and got a drink of water. After a moment, Hope sat down across from her in one of the wobbly plastic chairs and leaned her elbows on her knees. “You know, Adora, you remind me a lot of another girl I used to train with. Her name was Mara. She and I were…very close.” Adora had lived through enough years in the closet to know what _that_ meant. She eyed the older woman somewhat warily.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mara was angry, too. She had a lot of difficult feelings that…I don’t think she knew how to handle. She didn’t come to me or anyone else with her problems until it was too late.” Adora stared at the floor. “I just want you to know that I’m here if you ever do want to talk. I can’t promise that I’ll solve all your problems, but I _can_ help you figure things out.”

She nodded her understanding, swallowing a sudden swell of emotion. She didn’t ask what had happened to Mara; something told her she didn’t want to know.

After her hour was up, Adora changed back into her street clothes and walked her bike home. Their apartment complex was a little farther away, in a better part of town. The building wasn’t beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but it was clean and all the appliances worked. They each had their own bedroom. Glimmer had decorated the place like an Urban Outfitters on a strong dose of LSD. There were crystals, cute little succulents, and elegant macrame wall decorations everywhere.

“Adora’s back from her pussy appointment,” Glimmer called into the kitchen as soon as Adora opened the front door. She was working on her computer, presumably doing something for a class. Glimmer had dropped out of college then decided to go back about as many times as Catra and Adora had broken up and gotten back together. She would get in a fight with her mom about the suitability of her life goals, decide to quit everything and become a gutter punk for a couple months, then remember she needed an education to actually get anywhere and go slinking back.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re rude?” Adora replied, tossing her bag on the floor. She flopped down on the couch beside her friend.

“Almost everyone, constantly. The girl squad will be here in a couple hours.” Adora looked at her blankly. “We’ve got plans tonight, remember?”

She glanced at her phone. “It’s like, noon.”

“You know how long it takes everyone to get ready. It’s like the world’s longest and least interesting episode of _Drag Race_.”

Glimmer’s prediction came true. By the time Adora took a shower and ate some leftovers, the girl squad was already assembling. They took over the living room and turned it into what looked like the dressing room at a strip club. Makeup bags overflowed into bowls of snacks, discarded outfits lay draped over every piece of furniture, every mirror that wasn’t screwed in place was dragged over, and a fine layer of glitter quickly coated every surface in the room. They were sharing the speakers, so every couple of minutes there was a jarring transition in music from Perfuma’s Grateful Dead jams to Mermista’s gangsta rap to Glimmer’s aggressive pop hits…

“Has anyone heard from Entrapta?” Bow asked. He was applying a dramatic, glittery falsie to Glimmer’s eyelid _‘just to see what it looks like.’_ “She only ever sends me pictures of Emily.” Emily was a long-haired cat who loved attention almost as much as she loved food. Entrapta had taught her a lot of tricks and loved to construct complicated mazes for her to find her way through. There were a lot of videos and candid shots of Emily in the group chat, not that anybody minded.

“I mean, I assume she’s still busy getting her Ph.D. in boning,” Mermista droned. She was putting a lot of time and effort into achieving what were supposed to be effortless beach waves, massaging a combination of mousse and sea salt spray into her long hair.

Perfuma paused in the middle of braiding extensions into her hair to slap Mermista’s arm. “Don’t be mean!”

“Jesus! I’m not trying to be mean! Is that not what she’s doing over there?”

“It’s gotta be against some code of ethics, right?” Frosta said, frowning at her reflection in a floor-length mirror that was propped against the wall. The lime-green jacket that she was wearing was a real statement with the pink mesh skirt.

“I mean, I don’t think she formally stated to the board of the university that she’s fucking her thesis adviser,” Glimmer put in.

“Okay, are you sure about that, though? Because she’s not great at keeping a secret,” Bow said.

“Fair point.”

Adora was lying on the couch alternately watching the festivities and scrolling idly on her phone, barely listening. She didn’t really wear makeup or do her hair; she would probably throw on the same dress she always wore five minutes before they had to leave and call it a look. 

_u wanna roll deep with the girl squad tonight ?_ She hesitated, chewed on her lip, then sent the text. 

A moment later, Catra sent the barfing emoji. _ok but stg if that one girl tries to do reiki on me I’m throwing hands_

She stifled a laugh, turning her phone over, and rolled onto her side to look at her friends. “Hey, Perfuma, how are your reiki classes going?”

“Thank you for asking!” Perfuma gushed. “They’re fantastic. Remember how I told you I was having trouble with one of the energy fields? Well, it turns out that…”

*

The preferred bar for weekend outings was called The Fright Zone. Everyone loved the year-round Halloween aesthetic and the tacky themed cocktails. Adora never would have said anything for fear of spoiling the fun for her friends, but she hated it there. It was too loud and too crowded and the strobe lights gave her an instant headache. Maybe that was why she always overdid it. Clear liquor, no mixer, no empty calories. Once she got a buzz going, it was easy to just keep throwing back shots until she was almost too smashed to walk out on her own.

She wasn’t quite there yet, but it was a near thing. Her head felt impossibly heavy on Catra’s shoulder. She smelled like cigarettes and old leather. It was a comforting smell, unlike the miasma of perfume and booze that hung in the close air. Adora was pretty sure that at one point, they had been dancing, but now they were by a wall, holding still while the the rest of the room seemed to spin around her like a loud, unsteady carnival ride.

“You okay?” Catra asked, her hand gentle on the back of her neck.

“I’m really drunk,” she murmured with a little giggle.

Catra laughed, too. Adora liked the way her laugh sounded, the one that wasn’t mean. Smoky and affectionate, happy. “I noticed. Let’s get out of here, okay?” She nodded. On their way out, she saw the rest of her friends dancing in a group and waved to them to let them know she wasn’t dead.

As soon as they staggered out of the club into the cool night air, she heard someone calling her name and turned. Glimmer was jogging after them, heels dangling from one hand. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” she replied automatically.

Her eyes shifted between the two of them, obviously worried. “ _Home_ home, or…?”

It took Adora a minute to process this question. She had forgotten that she and Catra didn’t live together anymore. She wanted to be mad at Glimmer, but she couldn’t. Being fucked up on never-you-mind-what always amplified everything that was wrong with their relationship times a hundred. Glimmer had witnessed that fallout enough times that it was hard to blame her for putting up resistance when she saw it coming again. 

Catra was immediately defensive. “Why is that any of your goddamn business?”

Challenging a sober Glimmer was a questionable decision. Challenging Glimmer after she’d knocked back a couple of tequila shots was like shooting fireworks at a bear. “Because she’s my best friend, you crazy fucking bitch.”

“Why don’t you go play Captain Save-a-Ho with someone else’s girlfriend?”

“ _Excuse_ me?” 

Adora tried to get between them, but neither of them were interested in her anymore.

“Come on, let’s just go, okay?” She tugged at Catra’s arm. “Glimmer, it’s fine.”

“It’s definitely not fucking fine, Adora.” She rounded on Catra again. “Is that really how you wanna talk about her?” 

“Can you stay in your own damn lane for five minutes?”

“I don’t wanna do this, okay?” She pulled on Catra’s arm harder, but the other woman shoved her away. She was too drunk to stop herself from stumbling and falling on her ass. While Glimmer was preoccupied with helping her back up, Catra turned, shouldered her way roughly through the growing crowd of onlookers, and stormed away

Adora laid her head on Glimmer’s shoulder in the Uber on the way home. How she had gotten there in the first place was a blur of various sequined outfits, frowning lipsticked faces, and hushed conversations between her friends, but she was glad that she was sitting down. Everything was spinning a little bit less.

“Sorry I got in a fight with your girlfriend,” Glimmer said softly, leaning her cheek against the top of Adora’s head. Her makeup was dried in two stiff tracks of black mascara and purple glitter on her cheeks.

“It’s okay…it’s super easy to get in a fight with her.” She let her eyes flutter closed. 

“You still awake?” Glimmer said what could have been a minute or an hour later.

“Mhm.”

“You deserve better, Adora.”

“Thanks.” They’d had this conversation before. They didn’t need to have it again. It was enough for her to know that someone was going to be there to pick her up off the sidewalk no matter how many times she needed help, or for how long, or for what reason. It was hard to believe right then, but her life was getting better. “I’m okay. Don’t even worry, girl.”

Glimmer laughed. “I _know_ you’re okay. I want you to be…more than okay.” 

“Someday, right?” 

She wrapped her arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “Right.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me! This wasn't originally supposed to have a second chapter, but since I continue to be quarantined with my thoughts, here we are. This one is from Catra's perspective. I have a couple of follow-ups planned with some other ships in this same general universe, so look out for those.
> 
> One more jam for this chap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szeXkBYq5HU

As Catra saw it, there were three ways to claw your way out of poverty: marry rich, be born a prodigy, or hustle for your money. There weren’t very many wealthy women trawling the ghetto for a spouse and she had never been all that good at anything, so that left hustling. She was out on the streets all day, meeting people in her car, in parking lots, behind their places of employment, in their apartments. Selling drugs was just as boring and frustrating as any other job. The customers were shitty, the hours were fickle, the money could dry up in a second, and if somebody didn’t want to pay you, then you couldn’t snitch. You had to go get the money yourself. Catra didn’t _want_ to keep a baseball bat in her trunk and a 9mm on her hip, but what else was she going to do? Give people their shit for free?

Between calls, she sat in her car, chain-smoking and replaying the events of the previous night over and over again in her head. She and Adora had been getting along really well: suspiciously well, in fact. Adora had gotten absolutely plastered, of course, but Catra had expected that much. What she _hadn’t_ expected was her so-called best friend to come out of the bar swinging, talking absurd levels of shit. She should have just walked away. She should have let Adora handle it to the best of her wasted ability. She shouldn’t have pushed her so hard, knocked her down on the pavement. She should have stayed to clean up the mess instead of running away from the problem like she usually did. She could drive herself crazy this way.

There was only one way to make her brain stop churning out what-ifs and should-haves. When she had made enough money for the day, she bit the bullet, swallowed her pride, and called Adora’s number. She was half-surprised when she actually picked up, mumbling an incomprehensible greeting.

“Hey. How hungover are you?”

“Feels like I got run over by a dump truck.”

“I figured.” There was a long moment of silence. Catra grimaced to herself, letting her head fall back against the headrest. “I should have stuck around last night.”

“Honestly, I don’t even remember what happened. We were all drunk.” This was Adora’s way of forgiving her, absolving her of guilt, but it probably wasn’t true and it didn’t make her feel any better.

“What are you doing today?”

“I have to go to work. You can come with if you want; she doesn’t mind if I bring a friend.” She paused. “But I mean, you don’t have to.” There it was, the way she always second-guessed herself. _Did I do that to her?_

“No, I’ll hang. Text me an address.”

An hour later, she pulled up in front of a little cracker box of a house. Adora’s bike was chained haphazardly to a sign outside, so she knew she was in the right place. She worked as a home health aid for some old person, a job that required no real education beyond a high school diploma and no real skills other than being a nice person with a lot of patience. It was something that Catra herself never could have managed for even fifteen consecutive minutes. She parked on the street and walked all the way up to the front porch before she realized that she was still carrying her gun. Hopefully Adora wouldn’t notice that she had brought a loaded firearm to her place of work.

Adora opened the door when she rang the bell. She somehow managed to look good with bags under her eyes, wearing a set of baby blue scrubs that were a size too big for her.

“Come on in,” she said. “I’m just about to sort pills. Exciting stuff.” She rolled her eyes, self-deprecating, and leaned in for a quick kiss.

“Sounds like my idea of a good time.” 

Bizarrely, the house was decorated in the same aesthetic vein as a fortune teller’s studio. It was cluttered with fancy, colorful glass lamps, house plants, witchy trinkets, and patterned furniture. In the dim living room, a very old woman with a frizzy mass of white-blue hair was sitting in an armchair, her lap covered with a colorful blanket. When she spoke, it was with a thick Eastern-European accent.

“Well, who’s this?”

“This is Catra,” Adora said, raising her voice a little so the woman could hear. “She’s going to visit with you for a little bit while I sort your pills.” 

There had been absolutely no mention of having to talk to an old person. If there was one thing she wasn’t equipped to handle, it was polite conversation. Catra sat down in the only other chair in the room while Adora plopped down on the floor with a weekly pill organizer and what had to have been twelve different pill bottles. She tried not to think about how much money she could have made off some of those prescriptions, tried to smother the self-preservation instinct that drove too much of what she did. Not too long ago, she would have slipped a couple of those little orange bottles into her pocket on her way out, probably cost Adora her job without even caring. 

“How do you girls know each other?” the old woman asked, fixing surprisingly sharp eyes on her from behind thick, round glasses. Catra glanced over at Adora, slightly panicked. If she told the truth, was she going to have to spend the next hour listening to a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon? You could never tell with old people.

Adora just smiled. “This is my girlfriend, Razz.”

“Oh, wonderful! I’ve heard a lot about you. I had wondered if I was going to get to meet you. Hold your hands out, dear.” After a moment of hesitation, Catra held her hands out with her palms facing one another as indicated, hoping Razz’s eyes were too bad to read the tattoos scrawled across her knuckles and the backs of her hands. The old woman dug a skein of yarn out of a basket beside her chair, pulled out the tail, and began to wrap it around her hands. “I was thinking about making soup this evening.”

“Yummy. Need me to get anything from the store?”

Their conversation faded into pleasant background noise. Catra thought about what it would be like to quit everything she was doing, get a real job, and buy Adora an engagement ring. Stop smoking so much weed. Stop acting like a hellion. Go to therapy and address her childhood trauma or anger issues or whatever. Maybe even get as old as Razz instead of getting knifed over drug money before she was thirty. Sometimes it almost seemed possible. 

She sat there while Adora buzzed around the house vacuuming, dusting, and doing other odd jobs. The old woman chattered away; she didn’t seem to need much in the way of feedback as long as Catra nodded occasionally and kept her hands still. There were a couple of cats prowling around the edges of the room, nervous about a new person in their space; after a while, one of them got brave and jumped into her lap. Razz laughed at the look on her face.

“Don’t like cats?”

“Not really.” She couldn’t shove it off with her hands tangled up in yarn. It curled up and settled in for a nap.

“Don’t worry. She doesn’t like you either. She’s only sitting on you because you’re warm.” Catra huffed a laugh; she looked down at the cat, who cracked one murderous eye at her. It was _kinda_ cute, not that she ever would have admitted it out loud.

“She’s a good girl,” the old lady said absently, pausing in her work for a moment.

“Who, the cat?”

Razz chuckled. “No, _she_ is a very bad girl. Adora. She does more around this place than the bastards I hired pay her for. She’s been like a granddaughter to me.”

“Are you two talking about me?” Adora asked, rounding the corner. When she saw the homey tableau they made, she put her hands on her hips and grinned. “Oh, this is priceless. I’m taking a picture.” Before Catra even had time to protest, she had whipped her phone out of her pocket and snapped a picture.

“Thank you, dear.” Razz patted her arm and slipped the yarn off her hands.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go to the store today?” Adora asked. “Feels like I’m slacking.” 

“No, no. You can do that tomorrow. Go on, have some fun.”

After saying their goodbyes, the two of them headed out to the car.

“She’s kinda nice,” Catra said, opening her trunk so that Adora could throw her bike in.

“I love her. All kids in the neighborhood think she’s a witch, though.” She wiggled her eyebrows dramatically.

“I buy it.”

She drove a couple blocks away and parked by an empty playground. They leaned the seats back and passed a joint back and forth. It felt like hiding under the blankets together when they’d been kids in the group home. It felt like the sleeping bag they had shared on the street. It felt like their first apartment during a thunderstorm, when they’d put buckets and pots underneath all the leaks and curled up on the futon together. 

They had been tantalizingly close to having it all then. Her bad habits, the bad habits that they had built together had coalesced into something much worse than the sum of its parts. The fighting had gotten bad, escalated from screaming to broken glass to split lips. She had been high all the time, out all the time, always in a bad mood. Adora had moved out one day without even leaving a note. Catra wasn’t sure that she would ever get over that sudden, complete abandonment. She understood why Adora had done it, but that didn’t make it hurt less. It didn’t make her feel any less vulnerable.

Conversation still flowed easily between the two of them. They talked about people they used to know, whether or not magic was real, how to cut your own bangs and whether or not that was a good idea (Adora said yes, Catra was a hard no). There was nobody else in the world she could talk to like this, nobody else she trusted enough to let her guard down for even a fraction of a second. That was why she had to ask the question that had been weighing on her all day. She waited for a lull in the conversation, when the other woman was looking dreamily out the windshield at the sky, a faint, stoned smile on her face. 

“Am I ruining your life?” 

“What?” The smile faded from her face as she turned to look at her.

“Your friends always act I’m some kind of fucking monster.”

Adora took a deep breath, gathering her words. “All they see are the bad parts. They see me falling on my drunk ass outside bars and how messed up I am after we fight. I don’t blame them for feeling the way they do, but I know it isn’t fair to you.” She was quiet for a moment. “I have an idea, but you’re not gonna like it. Come have brunch with us next weekend.”

“That’ll turn into a cage match.”

“No, it won’t. Once they get to know you, they’ll warm up.” She reached across the center console and cupped Catra’s cheek with her palm, tracing her cheekbone with her thumb. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll like them too.”

This girl knew exactly how to disarm her. “Fine,” she grumbled.

“Oh my God. I almost forgot.” Adora drew back and fished her phone out of her pocket. She pulled up the picture she had taken at Razz’s house. Catra looked ridiculous, sitting in the wing-backed chair in her leather jacket and black jeans with a cat curled up on her lap, yarn wrapped around her hands, wearing a stupid, surprised expression.

“Don’t put that on the internet. Nobody will take me seriously ever again.”

“Aw, c’mon. You can be a bad bitch and a cutie pie at the same time.”

“I am _not_ a cutie pie.” Catra tried to grab the phone, but she pulled it away, giggling. 

“Look at you with that kitty, just helping a nice lady with her knitting. Adorable.” Adora pursed her lips; Catra quickly gave in and leaned over to kiss her. As soon as she was in range, Adora grabbed the lapel of her jacket to keep her there. “One more thing.”

“What?” In that moment, Catra probably would have given her anything she asked for.

“Don’t bring a fucking gun to brunch.” 

*

The four of them sat in awkward silence in the middle of a trendy, shabby-chic brunch spot packed to the gills with hipster-types and people who looked like Instagram influencers. Catra was watching Glimmer aggressively stirring a fourth packet of sugar into her coffee. Nobody had said anything for a good ten minutes, which was almost worse than the street fight she had been anticipating. Was this what rich people did for fun? Get dressed up and spend a lot of money to ignore each other? The silence was only broken when Bow’s phone pinged. He read the message and then rolled his eyes.

“Ugh, my dad texted me. What would college students be doing right now?”

“Crushing some textbooks,” Adora suggested.

“Snorting a line of knowledge,” Glitter said, plugging one of her nostrils to demonstrate.

“Fucking destroying the student union brick by brick.”

“Injecting some critical thinking straight into our veins.”

He completely ignored the two of them. “How about…‘hanging on the quad?’”

“What is this, _Dawson’s Creek?_ ” Glimmer snorted.

“Okay. We’ve established that we’re all uneducated criminals. That’s fine. I’ll just say ‘studying.’” 

“Studying that ass,” Adora suggested.

He threw his hands up. “Y’all need Jesus.”

“Your dad thinks you’re in college, huh?” Catra asked. She might as well try to get to know these dorks.

“Yeah. I never had the heart to tell my parents that I dropped out, so now I’m trapped in an elaborate lie.” He shrugged. “Adora said you don’t want to go back to school.” Clearly, Bow was the only one taking this brunch seriously. Either that, or he was genuinely interested in her life, which she found incredibly unlikely.

“No fucking thank you. I’m just trying to save enough money to get out of this shithole city before I die, to be honest.”

“Where do you wanna go?”

“Someplace bigger, where I don’t know anybody.”

“If I could move anywhere, I think it would be to California. Silicon Valley. I’d be a tech bro.”

“Why don’t you just do it?” Surely his parents had enough money that he could just move wherever he wanted to, do whatever he wanted to do, degree or no degree.

“I dunno. Why do you want to live where nobody knows who you are?”

Catra laughed. “Let’s just say I already made a bad first impression on everyone here.”

“You’re not exactly doing a whole lot to change that,” Glimmer said, pointing her spoon at her accusingly.

“Listen, what’s your problem? I know you hate me, but I’m here in this dumbass, bougie restaurant about to eat whatever the fuck a frittata is, just trying my best to be fucking friendly.”

There was a moment of tense silence. People at other tables turned to look at them. Glimmer’s face was unreadable; suddenly, she burst into laughter. “I don’t know what a frittata is either.” Catra snorted a laugh, and Bow and Adora joined in, clearly relieved.

“Okay, okay, I know I’ve been a massive bitch to you,” Glimmer said once she had stopped laughing, her expression immediately serious again. “I might be a little bit biased. I was there when Adora decided she had to move out of your apartment. I saw how hard it was for her, how heartbroken she was, and how much she’s grown since then…I’m just afraid of seeing her go back instead of forward.”

Catra wanted to get defensive. She wanted to tell Glimmer to go fuck herself, that she had no idea what she was talking about, that a little rich bitch could never understand why things had gone south the way they had. She was about to open her mouth and let loose when she saw the way Adora was looking at her, with an expression of mingled resignation and fear. She was just waiting for the explosion so she could pick up the pieces. If she shut herself down now, she wouldn’t have to spend tomorrow torturing herself with regret. She forced herself to think rationally for five seconds. They had no reason to trust her or to believe that she had changed. It was a good thing that Adora had other people in her life that cared about her even though on an emotional level, it felt like a betrayal. 

“I get it,” she said. “I don’t want that either. Like I said, I’m doing my best, okay?” 

Glimmer nodded. “Okay.”

“Are we done talking about me like I’m not here now?” Adora said, wearing a goofy grin. “And if we are, can we address why you ordered a frittata if you don’t even know what it is?” Under the table, she grabbed Catra’s hand and squeezed it. 

Maybe tomorrow she would start looking for a real job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Twitter @prettyalouettey send me a message and tell me wtf a frittata is. Wrong answers only.


End file.
